The IDF announced that it had killed a Hamas sniper who took part in the October 7, 2023, assault on Israel and who had been actively plotting fresh attacks on troops in Gaza.

Louay Hisham Mahmoud Basal, a sniper attached to Hamas’s Zeitoun Battalion in Gaza City, was killed in a strike Friday, the military said. Intelligence reviewed by the IDF placed him among the gunmen who breached the Zikim military base on the northern Gaza coast during the opening hours of the October 7 onslaught, when thousands of Hamas operatives stormed across the border into southern Israel.

The Zeitoun Battalion, which Basal served in, has been a repeated target of Israeli strikes. Its deputy commander, Musa Shaldan, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September. Shaldan had also taken part in the October 7 attack and had led hostage release ceremonies in Gaza City earlier in 2025.

The Zikim base, near the kibbutz of the same name on the Mediterranean coast, was one of several Israeli military installations overrun in the early hours of the Hamas attack, which killed roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw 251 taken hostage into Gaza.

The IDF has continued to target Hamas operatives it links to the October 7 attacks and to ongoing operations against Israeli forces in the strip. Israeli ground troops remain active across Gaza, with the army saying its operations are being guided by the Military Intelligence Directorate and the Shin Bet.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)